Among the Ranks of Other Famous Fat Heads

I was published once again in the newspaper. I got that poem called "What If?" in the August addition. I was very very pissed that the lady who put it in the paper didn't correct the mistake that I pointed out to her in an e-mail. It went something like this:

Before:
While the strong were forced to made a deal with the devil.

After w/ correction:
While the strong were forced to make a deal with the devil.

Then I received an e-mail back that said:

Done. Thanks.

I'm beginning to think that the bitch was laughing at me. If you say that sentence with sarcasm it explains everything. Writing is quiet ironic. You write a sentence or many and they could be taken anyway that the reader wants to take it. Maybe she intended to say, "What's the big deal. You are sixteen and you wrote a poem that sucks. I have better things to do than correct a mistake you should have noticed before you sent it, so ya! Thanks for the tip. I'm gonna go an get a coffee so I can stay awake long enough to kill myself."

It put a damper on a great day, I have to admit. Whatever, it was partly my fault. Geeezzus even when I sent in a picture of my bunny ABIE she spelt her name wrong in the paper. Jessica Shelley's bunny Albie. Albie? As in the racist dragon?

Shrug it off. Shrug it off. Is it possible? My dad read my story in the paper. The one about THAT day. He didn't say anything. I cried in my room. The same as time and time before when my dad lets me down. I shouldn't cry I know, not over him. I'm sick of wondering what it means, but after I told him that I was published again he told me that he could see me famous. Can I see me famous? Naa. I may be a fat head sometimes but I could never do it full time. I told my mom something when she said that I have talent. I said, "It comes and goes." The scary thing about writing is that after you finish a story you always wonder if that's the last one or if there is another, will it be as good? The world is full of the broken glass of broken goals. You know in school when they try to get you to have goals? Well it's all some sort of conspiracy designed to get you to do great things. I'm too lazy. Way too lazy. I could never get a job working with people. For one thing I don't like them and the other, I'd let them down. One thing that people forget about famous people is that they are still people and when they fall or stumble we love it because it reminds us that even golden plated people get scratched by broken glass. I guess deep down some people hide it, but it shows now and then. Stop hiding silly, come out and play. Embrace your jumbled thoughts, if you can gather enough energy to hold them. I know that I'm too lazy to care. How about you?

Building Sandcastles

This is the short story I submitted to that FOCUS newspaper yesterday night:

Building Sandcastles

His weary eyes followed the black bar as it made its way back up to the start of the page. Groaning, he watched as his hours of work were slowly wiped off the computer screen. He took his right forefinger from the backspace and moved his hands through his dark, scruffy mop of hair. Maybe his ex-wife was right. He pushed off the basement floor, sent the empty chair flying across the dimly lit room and watched as it went crashing into the wall. Taking off his glasses and placing them next to his notepad on the desk, he went up stairs and made a cup of strong coffee. He somehow managed to drain it in less than a minute. His eyes caught sight of the state of his lawn when he went to place his cup in the sink, which was overflowing with week old dishes. The lawn was in such bad shape that the people in the community seemed to avoid it as they went for their morning walks. The shrubs were once trimmed every week, the grass always cut and the flowers… The flowers weren’t dead like they were now… He remembered that his wife had taken care of the flowers. Her face would be marked with displeasure. The last time he saw her she wasn’t too happy either.

“How are you going to support us as a writer? Why don’t you just take that job at my brother’s company?” she asked. Getting more and more furious when he repeated that he had made up his mind. The fight went on for days, but following two weeks of quiet seething she found him in the kitchen preparing dinner.

“Fine. You made up your mind. It seems that you have your whole life sorted out. I can’t convince you to listen to me, so I too have made of my mind.” He didn’t say anything to prevent her from leaving. She moved out a day later.

What he really needed was to go outside. He couldn’t remember the last time he had opened the front door.

Stepping outside, he got an instant headache from the sun. He went back inside to get his sunglasses, which were buried beneath a pile of old newspapers that had piled up on his dinner table. He glanced at the date on one of the papers and become conscious of the fact that he had no idea what day it was. Stepping back outside he began walking. His neighbor John Nelson was having a beer on his front porch. John was waving at him, but he ignored John, kept his head down and walked faster. He really didn’t know where he was going, but stopped went he reached the beach. He first saw a bench powdered with grains of sand, he brushed some of them off, sat down and then he surveyed his surroundings. There was a young man and woman who were having a picnic. He could hear them laughing and felt the familiar pang of jealously. He turned his head away. There were a few other people. A little boy who was having trouble building a sandcastle, someone he assumed to be the little boy’s mother and a few teenagers swimming in the warm water.

“Hello.”

The voice made him jump and he turned to see who had broken the silence. It was a small woman in her eighties who had sat down beside him. He gave her an awkward smile and turned his eyes to the ocean.

“I’m sorry I scared you. I just thought that you might want some company.” She waited for his reply, but never got one. She looked like she was in pain as she struggled to get up, to leave him to his silence. He felt bad, so he turned and told her to stay. They sat there for a while, each one off in their own little world. The lady turned to him and told him that she had never seen anyone look so sad.

“I thought how odd. It’s such a beautiful day. The sun is so bright. It brings everything alive. See, just look at the ocean.” She said this as she pointed with her finger that quivered from the effort of the motion. He looked, but he could not see the beauty that she could so effortlessly. He lied to her when he nodded his head. It did appear to please the old lady. She once again pointed to various things around the beach and spoke about their beauty. He began to tune her out. He focused on the sand at his feet and started to push it around with the toe of his shoe. He took a quick look beside him and saw that the old lady had gone. He noticed that he still had his sunglasses on and that there was no need for them, so he took them off and put them in his pocket. Then, he went back to pushing the sand.

“Excuse me mister?” He looked up to see the little boy who had been trying to build a sandcastle and his mother standing beside him. “I was just wondering if you had something that I could put on my castle.” He glanced over the little boy’s shoulder to see that he had succeeded in building a sandcastle. It wasn’t perfect, but it was standing. He asked the boy how long it took him to build the castle.

Smiling, the little boy said, “A long time. It kept falling down.” The man asked him why he just didn’t give up. The little boy looked at him like he was nuts and said, “If I gave up every time that the sandcastle fell down, I’d never build a sandcastle.” The mother added, “Think about it, if every time you built a sandcastle it was perfect, then the excitement of building a perfect castle would fade. The effort makes the finished product that much nicer.” The mother bent and kissed the top of her son’s sandy blond head. Convinced that the man didn’t have anything to give him, the boy returned to his sandcastle. He watched as the boy walked away with his mother and he smiled. He stayed for a little while, until the sun went down and everyone left the beach to return to warm homes. He told himself that it was his time to go too, so he got off the bench and made his way home. This time around he waved to John, who was still sitting on his porch.

Going down stairs, he fetched his chair from across the room, turned on his computer and began writing. He wrote about pursuing dreams, ones that may lead nowhere, finding people who will support your leaps of faith and the importance of sunglasses. But, most of all he wrote about a little old lady who saw beauty wherever she looked and a boy who built imperfect sandcastles all day long.

I'm Tired but, I'm Not Going to Bed

I stay up all night. After awhile I convince myself that waking up will refresh me. It never does. I just go back to doing nothing. Ya ya ya, I know that in a few years when I will have to be doing something all the time, I'll look back and wish for this. Right now I'd rather be in a hole in the ground, away from this constant nagging in my head. Is it me or is it a piece of my mother poking my brain and making me jittery? That's what this is. I'm so full of pent-up energy that I could actually go outside for once. I haven't been eating correctly. My day is full of snacks. I babysit and come home and all I do is read, blog, play video games and suffocate myself with this nagging in my head. O, and eat more snacks. I think that all I need to do is vomit the contents of my stomach and I'll feel better. Not that I will though. I did it once when I wanted to get out of going to soccer practice and my throat stung all day. I'm watching south park right now. Well, it's a rerun but, it's something to watch other than go to bed. Tomorrow my mom is taking me to Milton to find the newspaper that I might be published in. I was excited awhile ago but the excitement wore off a little while back, My birthday is in 7 days. I haven't been counting. Someone told me. I don't want anything for my sixteenth. Well, to be honest I don't want to think about anything at the moment. My brain is mush. I don't want jewelery for my birthday cause I'll never wear it. I did ask that my mom help pay for the laptop that I plan to buy at the end of summer. She hasn't agreed yet, I hope she will. I need a computer to write on when I'm anywhere. No more scraps for me. I feel tired, but I don't want to sleep. I think I might go to my sister's empty room to sleep, it's colder and I wont step on any crap that seems to litter my room. I can't hardy type anymore, maybe I should go to bed.

FOCUS

- It's a newspaper that I wrote a story for

I'm hoping to get published but I received a pretty generic e-mail after I sent it to the paper. Something like Excellent Jess and thanks at the end. Could of been a load of bullshit, but what do I know? I'm writing a poem too, but haven't been able to get around to finishing it. Here are the pieces:

What if…there had been more like him?

A lone man to defend a broken country.
A strong man,
buried beneath the weight of eight hundred thousand bodies.
Bodies of men, women and children.
Bodies of innocents that had their freedom slashed away.
He was Force Commander,
yet his pleas were muffled by the fog of hatred.
Ignored even.
Until it was too late to be sorry.
His troops were ordered not to shoot.
All he could do was shake hands with the devil.
Condemn him for your mistake.
At least he had the guts to act.
It’s not in our interest.
It’s not in anyone’s interest.
Say that to the child who hid under bodies,
holding her mother’s cold, blood-spattered hand.
She waited for the bad men to go away.
Waited for them to kill her entire village
so she could leave that sacred place.
A church filled with blood.
It’s not in our interest.
We saw those images.
The images of genocide.
We asked ourselves what we could do.
And as we pondered,
Deliberated
Contemplated
Studied
Forgot
The genocide continued.
And that one man didn’t forget.
He couldn’t forget.
The general could only watch as day after day
the light returned to the dark streets.
The light still could not warm as it promised.
It was just another day filled with broken promises and hopes.
Another added to the 100 days of genocide.
Everyday filled with the prospect of being one day closer
to being saved.
But, little did they know that after we had spent our time
Pondering
Deliberating
Contemplating
Studying
Forgetting
We had also wasted their time, watching them die.
If only there had been more men like him.
What if?
We could only waste more time asking.
Time that could be used to find more strong people.
Time that could be used to speak for those who had their voices taken away.
Time that could be used to discover the end of preventable suffering.
Time that could be used to realize that if we only focus on the if’s then
we are just walking backwards,
tripping over bodies and passing all those strong people
who did all that they could.
Even if they were forced to look into the devil’s eyes and make a deal.
Looked into his bleeding eyes as the whole world watched from their couches
and shook their heads, muttering words of pity.
As the strong shook hands with the devil.